rEvolutionist wrote:Lie down everyone. Is everyone lying down?
I more or less agree with Seth here. If it was just a proclamation over his 3 or so trees, I would say suck it up buddy. But 99 acres (or whatever it was) is a big imposition on someones private propery. I don't know how much land Seth owns - if it was say 5000 acres, then I might be less inclined to care. But if this is a significant chunk of his land, then that in my mind should warrant compensation.
Thanks for that. However, how does the principle of just compensation for the taking of private property for public use change just because it's a "insignificant chunk" of someone's property. The Supreme Court has ruled that the amount of property taken is irrelevant, and that if one square inch is appropriated for public use, it must be paid for.
If one owns 5 acres or 50,000 acres, the expropriation of 33 acres (not to mention the tree itself) for use by the public as an eagle breeding site is still a taking, and compensation is owed. What that compensation might be is an entirely different matter, and is based on the use-value of the property prior to the taking. It also depends on whether it's a permanent or temporary taking.
In the case of an eagle tree, it's my view that the government should simply count all the eagle nesting trees on private property in the lower 48, and there are fewer than 7000 of them (because the estimated breeding population of eagles is about 7000 or so at last estimate) and offer to pay rent for as long as the tree falls under the regulation, which is 10 years after last occupied. It's relatively simple to calculate what the per-square-acre rental price is for, as in my case, cattle grazing, and to multiply that by 33 and send a check every month to the landowner.
This would induce landowners to make habitat available rather than doing what many of them actually do when eagles begin showing up, which is to cut down any tree that is suitable for nesting. I could have done that when the eagles first showed up to nest. I could have cut down every suitable cottonwood to prevent them from building a nest in the first place, and even if they established one nest, I could have cut down all the other cottonwoods and suitable trees to prevent them from moving their nest, and then killed off all the prairie dogs, which would have induced them to abandon their first nest. Then, ten years after I could cut down that tree.
The problem is that the law does exactly the opposite of what the F&WS want. It induces landowners to destroy potential eagle nesting trees so that their property will not be seized and their rights impaired. And that's exactly what happens in many places when eagles start showing up. The chain saws come out and the trees come down.
Inducing people to preserve such trees would seem to me to be a better plan. The regulation should be changed so that the restrictions on use of the area around a nesting tree are not quite so draconian, particularly given the fact that eagles are no longer endangered and have been removed from the endangered species list. Financial incentives to protect nesting trees that still allow reasonable use of the adjacent property would improve the situation.
And being realistic about eagle behavior would also be helpful. The federal regulation recommends a MINIMUM of 600 feet from any active nest, but it's so vague and broad that it's been interpreted in some cases to prohibit (by way of example) a gravel mining operation involving blasting more than two miles away from a nest tree that happened to be between the nest tree and the eagle's foraging site. Production was prohibited, costing the mine owners millions, because the F&WS decided that the activity MIGHT force the eagles to fly further to avoid the activity while foraging, thus "disturbing" their natural behavior and potentially causing a chick to die because the parents might be malnourished.
In other words, the health of nesting eagles has been given absolute priority over every human use, no matter how remote from the nest, if that human activity might "disturb" the natural behavior of the parents and cause a "take" of an eagle chick through the most strained, unlikely and unpredictable of circumstances.
And the metric is "was the natural behavior of the eagles disturbed in any way," and/or "did a chick die?" If that happens, the F&WS comes in and investigates and can ultimately charge, fine and imprison ANYONE who engaged in activity that "disturbed" nesting eagles, even if that person lived miles away from the nest and had absolutely no idea whatsoever that the nest even existed. We had them come out without a warrant one year when one of the chicks died (they are under constant observation by volunteers using telescopes from outside our property boundaries) and they tried to nail us for using an anti-tick pesticide on our cattle that they allege killed the chick. Problem for them was that we don't use the chemical, and they were unable to find anyone around us who did. We faced serious federal charges until that was resolved however.
Yes, the law is that draconian, and it's unreasonable and unfair, not to mention no longer necessary, since eagle populations have recovered sufficiently to allow less protection. The law needs to be amended to reflect the current situation and make it more equitable and supportive of landowners who cooperate in providing such habitat.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
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